Light microscopes of the inverse type are utilized primarily in chemistry, biology and metallography and function for investigating the object lying over an aperture of the microscope stage. The objects to be investigated are here investigated from below. As shown in German publication 76 28 471 U1 and Swiss patent publication 616,756, inverse microscopes comprise a closed housing which is configured as a U-shaped carrying frame. A light source for transillumination of the specimen is mounted on the top side of a housing leg in such a manner that the light source can be adjusted in elevation by means of a knob and a folding back of the carrier with the light source is made possible by means of a hinge.
The illumination carrier arm on inverse microscopes with the light source for transillumination can only be manually tilted to the rear. This leads to limitations and difficulties when working on the microscope especially for not so tall persons. This leads primarily to a limitation of free and ergonomically correct microscope positions of a user primarily for longer durations of work with the microscope. Since these users can only reach the illumination carrier arm when standing, the operator display can, for example, during conventional microscope operator functions, become damaged during the manually undertaken tilting or an unintended displacement of the condenser can occur. During a longer microscope operation, these necessary movements of a user can lead to intense vibrations of the entire stand when standing up so that disturbances or hindrances can occur for complicated configurations with micromanipulators in that, for example, in cell investigations, cells can be destroyed or glass needles can break off. For this reason, and as shown in the publication “Axiovort 200”, published by Carl Zeiss AG, two rubber buttons are provided for damping the end position for a tilting of the illumination carrier into the rearward position of the apparatus. When tilting the illumination carrier forward, such rubber buttons cannot be used because no exact stop surface can be defined.